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Garry is the proprietor of his own English Language school in Spain. With several years experience in the business, Garry shares a few of his interests with us, as well as providing a little more detail on his business.

Garry’s Profile & Contact Details

Your name and your role in the business?
Garry Holland. I am the owner, main teacher and design the courses to suit the student’s individual needs.

Gary, tell me a bit about your background?
I have done many different types of jobs to get by in life, from barman to owning my own school. I left school and studied to be an architect, due to recession was made redundant and went into the RAF as a mechanical engineer. Came out of there and for some reason went back into the building industry, back to my roots so to speak, Worked my way up to site manager, recession again, and worked for language schools as a private taxi driver. From there, re-educated myself and took the TEFL Cert to become a TEFL teacher, and later the Dip. Then set up my own school and the rest is history.
Into rugby, photography, music and sports generally and do charity work.

What made you decide to do ‘this’?
Was out of work, and decided to try and use my experience and qualification. Had worked with and housed language students in my house, and helped them with their homework etc and tried to find a job to combine all of these together and was lucky to find such a job.

How long has your company been trading?
In Spain, coming up to 6 years, but had a language school in Bournemouth in the UK for 8.5 years.

Where are you based?
I am based 30 minutes drive south of Alicante, 10 minutes from the beach in a very British area of Spain, known locally as “Little Britain,” nothing to do the English TV programme, as the vast majority of people here are British. There are a variety of different major towns around 30 minutes drive away, Elche, Alicante, Murcia etc.

Tell me about the weather
It is Spain – lovely and warm. In the winter it goes down to around 15 degrees Celsius in the daytime, just above zero at night. Summertime it’s normally around the late 30’s early 40’s during the daytime and at nighttime early 20’s. This area of Spain gets around 36 days of rain a year – heaven after living in the UK for most of my life!

Where are the nearest airports and which companies fly from them?
Alicante and the vast majority of the airlines fly in and out of there.

Tell me about your business
I specialise in high intensive 1-1 or small groups of up to 4 students. Teaching business and general English courses, also final preparation for the Cambridge exams.

What is unique about your business?
Good question, me, ok, I design the courses around the individual needs of the student/students and can adjust the course to suit them as we go along, very flexible, due to the small and personal classes.

Tell me about what you offer
We offer a very personal service, where I am the teacher and I take the students to and from the airport, and their accommodation after the class. Everything is included in the price of the fees, course books etc, but not the accommodation, that is separate.

What other services do you offer?
I am usually there for the students throughout their whole stay so if they want to go out in the evening or somewhere at the weekend. The ones who are interested in rugby can come training with me and to any matches that are on at the time.

Why would I choose you if I was looking for; a language course / homestay tutor / host family etc?
I am friendly, flexible, with many years of experience dealing with all situations and very adaptable to different cultures.

We look after and take good care of the students like a member of the family.

What is your business / are you hoping to achieve in the next year & next five years?
In the next year to get out of the recession and get the business running all the year round.

Long term, finding new agents and companies to work from around the world, but still keeping the same ethos as we have now, small and friendly.

What are you most proud of in business & personally?
Business – seeing the students pass their exams, but two students took both the CAE and CPE in June and passed both with an “A”

Personally – setting up my own school from the beginning.

Tell me about you and your family and if they are involved with your business, how?
My wife works for a local British newspaper and helps out with the paperwork in the school.

Our dog is like a child of the family and always likes to be with people.

Tell me about your typical week
When I am not teaching, in the gym in the morning, rugby training twice a week. Listening to music and meeting up with friends.

How do you spend your free time?
Training and playing rugby, listening to music relaxing in the sun.

What / who are you specifically looking for currently?
New students, agents and companies to work with.

What do you like about Xilfee
It is a different site from others, it is down to earth and Fiona is always there with advice and help when you need it.

What is your favourite work and why?
Teaching because I feel like I am putting something back into society, and helping people achieve their goals in life. If not that, a photographer traveling the world, gaining new friends and experiences.

What is the single best thing about your work and why?
See the students improving and passing their exams because the look of satisfaction and joy on their faces really makes me feel happy.

Who are your favourite types of customers and why?
Ones who are open-minded and want to learn. Enjoy learning a language for pleasure or business.

What do you like to do out of work?
Keeping fit, playing rugby, taking photos, relaxing, listening to music and traveling when I have the time and money.

What one thing would you like to do if you had the chance; for business; for pleasure?
For pleasure – travel the world to see how the other people live.
For business – be a photographer or musician.

Give one piece of advice for people teaching languages / in your field of work?
Enjoy it and have fun, as it is one of the most rewarding jobs you can have.

Which one thing would you change/do differently if you could go back in time?
Lots of things in some respects, but really nothing as my past has made me the person that I am today, and that I wouldn’t change, it just would not be me.

What are you looking to achieve from your Xilfee profile?
Looking for new students, contacts and friends.

What is your favourite saying and why?
I have a few: -
“Always look on the bright side of life”
“Don’t worry be happy”
”K.I.S.S”
“Life is too short, enjoy it while you can”

The school’s motto is “Learning should be enjoyable.”

Name your favourite food and why? How do you eat it, how is it made, where is it from?
Food in general, I just love different types depending on my mood, Chinese, Indian, Greek, Mexican, Spanish of course etc

Do you have any amusing stories, which relate to your business?
Quite a few with pronunciation in the class and made them into jokes to relax the students and get the other students to find similar situations. Long and short sounds.
One of my South American students mentioned that there were lots of nice b…h’s where he lives and not beaches when comparing Bournemouth with home.

We always encourage the students to ask any questions they want, and this can be slightly embarrassing at times – One of my Japanese students told all his friends, students and family that he was, gay, which he wasn’t, but in his dictionary, gay meant happy, so in a way he was in old fashion terms, but not nowadays.

Looking back there were a lot interesting things that have happened over the last 14.5 years of having my own business.

Garry’s Profile